Wednesday, October 29

Tim Keller: Hints for Preaching Christ In The Old Testament


I've been finding a series of lectures by Tim Keller and Edmund Clowney very interesting and beneficial. The topic of the lectures is "Preaching Christ In A Post-Modern World." You can find the lectures on ITunes for free.

The topic I listened to most recently was on preaching Christ from the Old Testament, and Keller was answering the question "What commentaries present a redemptive-historical orientation on the Old Testament?" Keller answered with this gem:

Sometimes the New Testament scholars today are more sensitive to the Old Testament backgrounds than the Old Testament scholars feel free to move forward...

I do think the most recent commentators on the gospels are feeling very free to look back, and they recognize the enormous number of allusions that are really there. Look in the scripture index in the back of your New Testament commentaries when you're preaching on Isaiah or Exodus or Chronicles.

We have a tendency to say "Okay, I'm preaching on Chronicles" and you look at your [bookshelves] "O gosh, I don't have any commentaries on Chronicles!" You order some, you go to the library.

Maybe you better look in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John -- all your commentaries on the gospels -- and look back for allusions to your passage in 2 Chronicles. And to your surprise, you'll find sermon-breaking comments: exegetical insights that just break open the whole thing for you as a preacher on your Old Testament texts in your New Testament commentaries. I do that all the time.

2 comments:

David said...

Very helpful.

Thank you!

Unknown said...

Thanks for the Info's Tim! I've learned a lot from it! Keep it up! and god Bless you!

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